1. PEOPLE IN BUSINESS
Reprinted from Nation's Business  June 1981
While Jane Puleo was working on a
degree in English literature, she never
dreamed that within a few
years she would be visiting
nuclear plants and tramping across oil
fields in Alaska while preparing to
run her father’s company, Puleo
Electronics, Inc, - and enjoying it.
“I am surprised at how exciting
I find electronics,” says Puleo,
who describes herself as a
nontechnical and
nonmathematical
person.
It all began in 1974 when, at
23 she joined the
company her father,
Rosario Puleo, had
founded six years earlier.
“At that time the company
designed and manufactured large tailor-made
systems for the communications industry,
basically a one-man business,” she says. “I
knew that if I were to take over the business
someday, I could never do that, so we talked
about switching to the manufacture of one
product.”
The product they settled on was an alarm
annunciator that accepts signals from such
variables involved in a manufacturing
process as temperature, pressure, flow and
power levels, and alerts plant operators when
emergency situations occur. As industry
becomes more automated, devices like these
gain in importance. The annunciator was
designed and engineered by her father and,
she says, “with my English literature degree,
I undertook the project of introducing this
electronic product to a technical market and
generating sales.”
The first three years were very
difficult because, she says,
“tremendous research and
development costs were pitted
against a poor cash flow situation.”
Growth was slow but steady
when she launched a
marketing campaign and
opened a San Francisco sales
office for the company,
which is based in
Lynbrook, N.Y.
“The training I had in
writing really helped there,”
says Puleo who now is vice
president for sales and
marketing.
Among the users of
annunciators are oil and chemical companies.
She recently negotiated contracts with the
U.S. General Services Administration and the
Cochin Pipeline in Canada,
The company has expanded to a staff of 10
and is now known nationally as a leading
supplier of annunciators. A new annunciator,
with alarms controlled by microprocessor, is
on the drawing board, although Puleo's father
is now working part time in preparation for
retirement.
Sales for 1981 are approaching $1 million
and Puleo, who is active in such
organizations as the American Women’s
Economic Development Corporation and the
Society of Women Engineers and Instrument
Society of America, is working hard toward
an M.B.A. in corporate management.